The Rounds Video Chat App, standalone for iPhone and Android, is finally here! Previously only available on Facebook, you can now download Rounds –for FREE!

Back in June we wrote about Rounds, formerly a Facebook-only phenomenon that had raised raised a total of $5.5 million in funding from industry leading investors, including Verizon Ventures, Rhodium, DFJ’s Tim Draper, and other private investors to become a Rounds standalone app. The capital was going to turn Rounds into a a standalone app; but no ETA had been announced. Today the company quietly launched the Rounds video chat app as a standalone app available on iPhone and Android –I couldn’t be any more excited!

Rounds is the first ever “Mobile Hangout Network.” Users can hang out and share media while video chatting with their mobile contacts and Facebook friends — including watching YouTube videos together; switching between five unique view modes, even adding crazy video effects; uploading photos to view together; taking snapshots, sharing moments and even use your phone’s touchscreen to scribble over each other’s live video streams and photos with a virtual marker.

With the Rounds video chat app, Rounds is able to combine online entertainment with video communication (“communitainment”) to bring friends and like-minded people closer together for a fun, live experience across social networks, operating systems and devices. Bridging the offline and online worlds, Rounds uses shared activities, games and video to give friends the feeling of ‘hanging out’ in real life. An interactive stream of friends’ and featured users’ “captured moments” from live sessions gives hangouts an afterlife, creating a new social network around them.

Use the Rounds video chat hangout to connect with your family and friends. Here’s how it works:

Use fun webcam effects and take funny photobooth snapshots with different video effects

Take photo booth snapshots of you and your friends while you are video calling

Scribble on your friends video images. Draw something funny and take a photo snapshot together

5 different view modes. Use the transparent view mode to take a snapshot as if you are in the same room

The team behind Rounds is a Tel Aviv Company (learn about Technology in Israel). Their executive Vice President, Oren Levy explained: “Rounds is a hangout platform, and our mission is to take the experience of hanging out in the real world and bring it to the online world.” He adds that the apps main aim is to make for a fun environment. And fun it is: Rounds for Facebook had an estimated user base of one million users per day with most users averaging about 40 minutes on the app!

Visit Rounds to download Rounds video chat app mobile, now available for iPhone and Android for FREE!

Rounds is a favorite Facebook video chat app. After about an estimated $5.5 million in funding from Verizon Investments, Rhodium, DFJ’s Tim Draper, and other investors, web users will soon be able to use Rounds without having to log into their Facebook accounts!

If you’re unfamiliar with Rounds, it has become popular for its interactive video chat functionality, which for example, allows you and a friend to watch YouTube together or play each other’s favorite games. An even more appealing segment of this app is the use of a collaborated study and research browser that study buddies can access together. The app also lets you draw on whiteboards. Rounds has a total of 30 games and activities. One of the more recent games is called “Friends of Friends,” which enables you to chat with the Facebook friends of your buddies.

The team behind Rounds is a Tel Aviv Company. Their executive Vice President, Oren Levy explained: “Rounds is a hangout platform, and our mission is to take the experience of hanging out in the real world and bring it to the online world.” He adds that the apps main aim is to make for a fun environment. In fact, recently, Rounds designated a space for Israeli and Iranian users and called it Rounds’ “We Love You” campaign; the result was a rather unique and emotional video:

Round has an estimated user base of one million users per day with most users averaging about 40 minutes on the app. Approximately 10% percent of users rarely meet to chat with friends or friends of friends; in fact, 90% who use the platform use it to meet new people.

In many ways Rounds is similar to Google+ Hangouts, but Levy explains that though the Rounds team admires Google+ for its functionality and efficiency, Rounds “is a more personal and emotional tool.” It is the only “communitainment” platform in the world that combines video chat (communication) and social apps (entertainment) into one fun, real-time, live hangout experience which gives users the closest feel to actually hanging out in the real world.

There’s been no specific date for the standalone Rounds, but it is expected to be available soon. In the meantime, check out the Facebook version for yourself for FREE. The Rounds video chat Facebook application can be found at http://apps.facebook.com/chatrounds.